There’s a burning question on the minds of those about to attend one of the world’s most iconic festivals this summer: how should they deal with Meta smart glasses?
As controversy around the gadgets grows, some events and venues have taken a hard line against wearing the camera-equipped frames. Basement, one of New York City’s buzziest nightclubs, recently said it would permanently ban anyone who tries to sneak in with smart glasses.
But Burning Man, the week-long event that takes place in the Nevada desert each year, has taken a softer stance. In an update to its official “survival guide” last month, organizers said that wearing and using smart glasses were A-okay — so long as you don’t record anyone without consent.
“Before using any device — including cellphones, cameras, or smart eyewear — you must ask and receive permission from anyone who may appear in your frame, whether they are the main subject or in the background,” it states.
Fans, though, sound like they wanted the festival to take a harder stand. A recent thread in the r/BurningMan subreddit asking “How do we ban Meta glasses at BM?” has received hundreds of comments, many of them trashing spyware spectacles and the “glassholes” who wear them.
“Public shaming is great,” one wrote in the thread, spotted by Mercury News. “At BMan I am sure it would be easy to turn a whole bar or art car against a glass hole.”
“Shame the sh*t out of whoever is wearing them,” echoed another. “They’re creep-glasses and whoever is wearing them at Burning Man is a creep.”
Others were less optimistic about banning the glasses at Burning Man, an event that’s inextricably connected to the culture of Silicon Valley and tech.
“You can’t. Burning man and society noticeably degraded after good phone video appeared and this is just an extension of that,” lamented one, reminiscing on the times when nudity was more common at the festival.
It’s a particularly interesting issue for Burning Man, a festival that prides itself on “radical inclusion,” to be dealing with.
In recent decades, it’s become more notorious for being a retreat for celebrities and wealthy elites, ranging from SpaceX founder Elon Musk to Meta head Mark Zuckerberg. Plenty of Silicon Valley types and tech bros make a pilgrimage there — in other words, exactly the kind of people who would wear smart glasses.
That, of course, clashes with Burning Man’s more radical and proletarian crowd — the people who run around naked on the playa and probably don’t want to be recorded, the artists who turn their nose up at AI and tech companies, and anyone else who wants to indulge in some debauchery away from social and digital surveillance.
Maybe it’s a little telling that the organizers have refrained from a sweeping ban. It knows its crowd — or its crowd that has all the money, at least.
More on smart glasses: Meta Working on “Kill Switch” in Face of Overwhelming Disgust With Its “Pervert Glasses”
The post Burning Man Has a Meta AI Glasses Problem appeared first on Futurism.
